The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-03-27
JOHI MORLEY ON READING
AND WRITING-WHAT CAN BE
DONE In HALF AN HOUR
or Every Day by One Intent on the
Acquisition OF Knowledge
Advice TO Readers.

the DtuQeuUS OF inc bOuuOu DOCleIy
for the Extension of University
Teaching Alter the severity with
which science was for so many ages
treated by literature, cannot won:
| der that science now retaliates and
treats literature somewhat with con-
tempt. | only have to say on the
relative claims of science and litera-
ture what the great DR.. Arnold said:
IF l had to choose, | would rather
that a son OF mine believed that the
sun went round the earth than that
he should be entirely deficient in
knowledge of beauty, of poetry and
of moral truth" l am glad to think
that one may know something of
these things and yet not believe that
the sun goes round the earth. But
of the two,I for one, am not prepared
TO accept the rather enormous pre-
tensions that are nowadays made
sometimes for physical science as
the be all and end. all of education.
Next TO this we know that there is a
great stir on behalf of technical and
commercial education. The special
needs of our time and country com
pei us to pay particular
attention to this subject. Here
knowledge is business, aud we shall
never hold our industrial pre-emi-
nence, with all that hangs upon it,
unless we push on scientific, techni
cal and commercial education with
all our might But there is-and
now | come to my subject third
kind of knowledge, which, too, in its
way is business. There is the cult
walton of the sympathies and mag
| nation, the quickeniDg Of the moral
sensibilities and the enlargement Of
the moral vision. That is, | take it,
the business and function of litera-
ture " Some people are born
with the incapacity of reading, as
some are with the incapacity Of dis
tinguishing one tune from another,
and to them | have nothing to say.
Even the morning paper is too much
for them to get more than skim.
ming from. | 60 further, and |
frankly admit that the habit and
power of readine with reflection, COM
prehension and memory all alert and
awake does not come at once to the
natural man any more thau
many other sovereign virtues.
What | do submit to you and urge
upon you with great earnestness is
that it requires no preterhuman
force of will in man or woman-un-
less household circumstances are I'M
usually unfavorable-to get at least
half an hour out of solid, busy day,
for good and disinterested reading.
Now, in half an hour | fancy you
can read fifteen or twenty pages OF
Burke, or you can read one Of
Wordsworth's masterpieoes-say the
lines on Tintern-or more than halt
if scholar, in the original, and il
not, in translation of the book of
the Iliad .or the Eneid. | am moi
filling the half hour too full; try FOL
yourselves what you can read in hal
an hour. Then multiply the hal
hour by 1866, and consider wha
treasures you might have laid by a
the end of the year; and what hap
piness, .fortitude and wisdom they
would have given you for lifetime
X
SUBJECTS, AUTHORS OR BOOKS?
The wise student will do most Of
his reading with his pen in his hand
He will not shrink from the useful
toll of making abstracts and sum
maries of what he is reading. Some
great men-Glbbon was one, and
Daniel Webster was another, aud the
great Lord STAFFORD was a third
always before reading book made 0
short, rough analysis of the ques-
tious which they expected to be an.
swered in it. and the conditions to be
made for their answer, and whittier
it would take them. | have some
times tried that studied and guarded
attention, and | have never done sc
without advantage; and | commend
it to you. | need not tell you that
think that most books worth reading
once are worth reading twice, and
the masterpieces of literature-and
this is very important fact-arC
worth reading a thousand times, Il
is q great mistake to think that be-
cause you have read a masterpiece
once or twice, or ten times, that you
have done with it. Because it is {
masterpiece you ought to live will
it, and make it part Of your dali!
life. Another practice which | com
mend to you is that of keeping
common place book, and tran
scribing into it all that is striking
and interesting and suggestive, o.
or that seems to lead anywhere. AnC
if you keep it wisely and we'll, a
Locke has taught us, you will pu
every entry under a head, division
and subdivision, which is excelleu
practice for concentrating YOU
thought on the passage and making
you alive to its real point and signih
canoe.
We are often asked whether it il
best to study subjects or authors o
books. Well, | think that is lik,
most of tho stock questions witt
| WulCu Viz DOlNNioO lhRVuuiNJ "
mankind torments itself; it is entirel,
idle. twas said to me that | shout,
say something en- it. My answer i
that it is sometimes best to stud
books, sometimes authors and some
times subjects; but at all times t,
study authors, subjects and book
in connection with one another
Whether you make: your first ap
proach from interest in an author Q
in a book, the fruit will be only hal
gathered if you leave off without new
ideas and clearer lights both on tn
man and the matter. One of tn,
noblest masterpieces in the litera
ture of civil and political wisdom i
found in Burkes three pieces on tn,
American war-his speech on taxa
ton in IVA, on Cancellation in l775
and his letter to the sheritfS o
Bristol in 1777. l can only repea
to you what | have been saying
in print and out of 1t for a good man.
years. What believe more frml!
as observation is enlarged by tim,